Cal’s Patrick Laird broke character in breakout game...

1of 3Running back coach Burl Toler III, center, runs along side Patrick Laird during a Cal Bears football practice at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif., on Tuesday September 25, 2018Photo: Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle

2of 3Patrick Laird celebrates a rushing touchdown in his traditional fashion — opening his hands as though reading a book — in the season opener against North Carolina.Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Patrick Laird is still a really, really good dude — as indicated by being named a finalist for the Senior CLASS award Wednesday.

But the running back played with a mean streak Saturday at Oregon State, and even talked a little trash.

“I loved it,” running backs coach Burl Toler III said.

Laird inevitably plays hard, but he showcased a newfound edge in a 193-yard, two-touchdown rushing effort in a 49-7 defeat of the Beavers that also included three catches for 48 yards and another score.

On a three-play sequence late in the second quarter, the 6-foot, 205-pounder jumped through a would-be tackler on a 24-yard run, rumbled for 2 hard-fought yards on the next play and then stiff-armed his way to a 4-yard score to cap the drive.

The Cal sideline went crazy and Laird, who usually just tosses the ball to the nearest official and exchanges handshakes with teammates, made sure to tell some Oregon State players about the highlight reel he had just produced.

Saturday’s game

Who: No. 15 Washington (6-2, 4-1 Pac-12) at Cal (4-3, 1-3)

Where: Memorial Stadium

When: 3:30 p.m.

TV/Radio: FS1/810

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Then, he shocked Toler III by motioning for a chest bump as he approached the sideline.

“I think I surprised him with that,” said Laird, who out-leaped Toler III during the celebration. “Look at the film. He’s taller than me, and I’m a whole head above him. He always tells us not to put something bad on film, so I was getting after him about putting a bad vertical jump on film.”

Laird said he made a concerted effort to be more decisive about making his initial cut Saturday and ran with purpose through potential arm tackles — the exact game plan he’ll need Saturday against the best defense Cal has played.

No. 15 Washington comes to Berkeley ranked 10th in the country in scoring defense (15.6 points per game) and 16th in total defense (308.6 yards per game) just as the Bears’ running game appears to be finding itself.

The 193 rushing yards Laird produced Saturday more than doubled his previous season-best game (95 yards on 22 carries against North Carolina in the opener). On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, he popped a 53-yard run — his longest run of the season by 34 yards.

Laird did his best work last season in Cal’s final three games: He had 85 carries for 545 yards (48.4 percent of the total output in his breakout season).

“When you get going like that, you kind of feel it, especially with the O-line, because they get pumped up,” Laird said. “When we’re in the middle of a drive, I try to stay very emotionally stable, but I let my emotions rise when I come to the sideline.

“It’s really fun to see everyone get pumped up.”

Moments after Saturday’s game, Laird had dialed back down to being “Nice Guy Pat.” He planned to meet with a Danville boy who had saved up $105 in allowance to buy a No. 28 Cal jersey and had made the trip to Corvallis with his family.

Stuff like that, and the nearly 4,000 children positively impacted by Laird’s well-documented reading challenge, are why he was one of 10 FBS players chosen as a finalist for Senior CLASS award.

The acronym stands for “Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School” and will be awarded during the bowl season after a coach, media and fan vote concludes Dec. 5.

While Laird was doing a postgame interview for the Pac-12 Networks on Saturday, the Danville boy sneaked into the frame.

Rusty Simmons has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle as a reporter since 2002, when he moved to the Bay Area from Texas — via Washington, D.C., Seattle and Germany. He covered prep sports and then Cal football and basketball before assuming the Golden State Warriors beat in 2009. Along with regularly breaking news and putting creative spins on big-issue stories within the Cal athletics beat, Rusty spends his offseasons writing human-interest features on the Bay Area sports landscape.